Opening Plenary

A World Filled With Cameras: Security at the Cost of Freedom? Or Can We Have Both?
David Brin

David Brin is a scientist and author whose future-oriented novels include Earth, The Postman, and Hugo Award winning best-sellers Startide Rising and Uplift War. (The Postman inspired a major film in 1998.) Brin is also known as a leading commentator on modern technological trends. His non fiction book - The Transparent Society: Will Technology Make Us Choose Between Freedom and Privacy? - deals with provocative issues of openness and liberty in the wired-age. Brin's newest novel - Kiln People - explores a fictional near future when people use cheap copies of themselves to be in two places at once.

Since the tragic events of 9/11 we keep hearing security experts demand tighter restrictions on daily life, while civil libertarians preach we should accept risk to avoid "Big Brother". Both groups implicitly assume a tradeoff between safety and freedom. But is such a tradeoff necessary? For generations, people have grown detached from responsibility for protecting and maintaining civilization, handing evermore of the task to paid professionals. But on 9/11 most of the useful video was taken by private citizens, private cell phones spread word quicker than official media, and the sole effective action to thwart terror was taken by individuals, armed with intelligence and communication tools outside official channels. What does this suggest about the coming era? Pundits cry that onrushing technologies threaten our freedom and privacy, yet these commentators actually underestimate the 'Moore's Law of cameras' that may soon spread digital vision nearly everywhere at minuscule expense. Meanwhile, citizens take a pragmatic attitude, accepting and even embracing the new age of transparency - one in which technology may actually empower individuals even more than elites.

Closing Plenary

Interfaces for Alternate, Automated and Involuntary Experiences: Prosthetics, Robotics and Remote Operational Systems
Stelarc

Stelarc is an Australian artist who has performed extensively in Japan, Europe and the USA- including new music, dance festivals and experimental theatre. He has used medical instruments, prosthetics, robotics, Virtual Reality systems and the Internet for art performances.

In 1997 he was appointed Honorary Professor of Art and Robotics at Carnegie Mellon University. He was Artist-In-Residence for Hamburg City in 1998. In 2000 he was awarded an honorary Degree of Law by Monash University. He is now Principal Research Fellow in the Performance Arts Digital Research Unit at The Nottingham Trent University, UK. His art is represented by the Sherman Galleries in Sydney.

In his presentation he will explore alternate, intimate and involuntary interfaces with the body, demonstrating a muscle stimulation system for remote choreography of the body.